Choosing a vegetarian diet changed their health
Here's how local people made the switch
01:34 PM CDT on Tuesday, June 19, 2007
By LISA MARTIN / Special contributor to the Dallas Morning News
Photo by: Rex C. Curry
Though no physician ever suggested that Barbara Bush of Carrollton become a vegetarian, the assistant professor at the University of North Texas realized that she inherited a legacy of diet-related diseases that included diabetes and heart problems.
A dozen years ago, she began as a vegetarian, then transitioned to a vegan, someone who eats no animal products whatsoever, including dairy and eggs.
"Doctors seem to enjoy telling me I'm in good health," she says. "And I feel like I'm in good health."
She's part of a growing trend of people abstaining from or limiting the amount of meat and other animal-based products in their diet. As of last year, there were an estimated 4.8 million vegetarians in the United States, one-third to one-half of them vegan, according to the Vegetarian Resource Group, a nonprofit educational organization. That number has nearly doubled since 1997.
So why have those people decided to go vegetarian? The reasons vary nearly as much as the people themselves, although definite themes motivate the choice, namely health and ethical and environmental reasons.
As a teenager in the Czech Republic, Barbara Dillard feared that a nasty bout of hepatitis would end her dreams of becoming a professional ballerina. Traditional medicine may have saved her life at age 17, but she despaired that the constant fatigue and accompanying weakness might end her aspirations. Out of desperation and after much research, she decided to try vegetarianism.
"My doctors were amazed at my recovery," says Mrs. Dillard, a Dallasite since the late 1990s. "But it wasn't easy to be a vegetarian. I even had to learn to make my own soy milk." That's because such products were not readily available at the time in the Eastern European country.
She went on to spend four years as a member of the National Theatre ballet company in the Czech Republic before moving stateside, where she is a stay-at-home mom.
Dr. Manisha Chandalia, an endocrinologist and metabolism specialist at UT Southwestern Medical Center, also brought a tradition of vegetarianism with her to Dallas.
"I don't have strong religious reasons for being a vegetarian, but growing up in India, nobody in my family was very keen on meat," she explains. "Here, it's more difficult for me to be a vegetarian. It's easy to become sloppy and end up with a carb intake that's too high."
Dr. Chandalia describes herself as an ovo-lacto vegetarian: someone who eats no meat, poultry or fish but whose diet includes dairy products and eggs.
Mrs. Dillard, on the other hand, is a vegan: She will not consume animal products, which means checking food labels for ingredients such as lard and gelatin.
Behind the decision
The reasons people turn to vegetarianism tend to fall into three broad categories: health, the environment, and animal rights or ethical considerations. Religious reasons also may lead a person to abstain from eating certain types of meat, such as pork or beef.
Reactions from the uninitiated to a vegetarian's dietary choice can range to fascination or abject horror.
"My family still doesn't understand how or why I'm a vegetarian," says Barbara Bush, president of the Black Vegetarian Society of Texas. "But when my father passed away, one of my aunts who's a big meat eater went out of her way to research and prepare a vegan meal. I was so touched by this gesture of support."
Ms. Bush says her co-workers often are fascinated by her choice.
"Whenever we're together at a banquet, I get a special meal, and people are always enthralled," she says with a laugh. "I try to be discreet, and I'm not a missionary out to convert people, but they always ask questions."
The inquiries often center on protein: Is she eating enough? How can she and other vegetarians survive, let alone thrive?
"If you have a crummy diet and give up meat, it's likely that you'll still have a crummy diet," says Jo Ann Carson, a professor of clinical nutrition at UT Southwestern and a registered dietitian who earned a doctorate in nutrition.
"But most serious vegetarians and vegans go out of their way to have a healthy diet and not to eat doughnuts all day long."
Earth, animal concerns
Although health concerns initially motivated Terry Jensen of Euless to go vegan in the mid-1990s, she quickly embraced the environmental benefits of the practice.
"Food is one of the biggest users of energy and one of the greatest contributors to global warming," she says. "Not only are the greenhouse gases emitted from the animals' waste causing problems with the environment, but you also have issues of transportation of the food and the energy that consumes."
Adds Margaret Morin, co-president of the Vegetarian Network of Dallas and a former registered nurse: "The number one thing you can do to support the environment is to go vegan." For this longtime Dallasite, however, another issue motivated her decision 15 years ago to become a vegetarian: empathy for animals.
"Farmed animals are objectified as cogs in the wheel of production and forced to eke out a miserable and lonely existence until they die, usually in terror, just so humans can eat their flesh," she says. "This is incontrovertibly wrong."
Missing ice cream
For her friend, Rusty Posch of Irving, a dispatcher for Southwest Airlines and a vegan who gave up animal products almost nine years ago, the only thing he truly misses about his former lifestyle is ice cream.
"Tofutti is OK, but the rice-based ice creams don't taste as good to me," admits this longtime volunteer with the Irving Animal Shelter.
Like many vegetarians and vegans, he went cold turkey on meat. Others, including Ms. Bush, preferred to taper off, first giving up beef and pork, then chicken, then fish and finally all animal products. The choice is purely individual, one born of myriad factors ranging from convenience to cravings.
"The one advice I've given people who are tempted by fast food at work is to bring meals from home," he says. "Someone who brings in fried chicken or something, well the smell might get to you, especially in the beginning."
Lisa Martin is an Arlington freelance writer. The New York Times also contributed to this article.
